The Great Gatsby Crew Had to Create a Special Privacy Shield for Leonardo DiCaprio

While creating his flashy, larger-than-life adaptation of The Great Gatsby in Sydney, Baz Luhrmann encountered a series of comparably dreary setbacks now chronicled in a new Hollywood Reporter feature. Among them: production-halting downpours during Australia’s third-rainiest season ever; a vengeful crane that literally butted heads with the director, leaving a gash that required four stiches; “a potentially noxious fog” that led “safety officers to evacuate the set”; and aggressive photographers who allegedly broke into DiCaprio’s rented home during filming. In response to the latter situation, the movie’s titular star moved to a nearby hotel, and the crew erected a special barrier—a vinyl screen—to block the actor from prying lenses.

Among the other fascinating anecdotes in the feature is why exactly the Australian filmmaker was stirred to reinterpret the American classic.

The idea of filming Fitzgerald’s work came to Luhrmann when he listened to it as a book-on-tape while traveling on the Trans-Siberian Express in 2004.

“The train was basically full of Chinese people smuggling stuff into Mongolia,” he recalls. “I had two bottles of red wine and the new iPod with two recorded books. There’s Siberia ticking by, and the birch trees, and the wine bottle, and I’m listening [to Gatsby]—and when it ended, I had inconsolable melancholia. I was like, ‘Can we do all that again?’”

With $100 million in financing, Luhrmann ultimately was able to, and nine years later, the film is set to open in theaters on May 10. Carey Mulligan reportedly beat out Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, and Michelle Williams—after reading the book for the first time several days before the audition no less—to play Daisy. Tobey Maguire stars as Nick Carraway and Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan. To whet your appetite, view the trailer below.